It is, of course, a batsman's game. Or is it? The inflation in batting averages and strike rates in the past decade – for all their assorted talent Michael Atherton, Alec Stewart, Nasser Hussain, Ian Botham, Allan Lamb and Mike Gatting all averaged below 40 in Tests; Matt Prior averages over 42 – has had many a retired bowler snorting with rueful derision in the TV commentary box. Bigger bats, we were told. Shorter boundaries. The bouncer rules. "Chief executive" pitches. All of these things were tipping the balance irrevocably away from the craftsmen of seam and spin and towards the flat‑track slugger with his featherbed block-drive four, his anti-chin-music regulations, his meaningless run-pile.

As it turns out we may be witnessing a correction. The decade‑long Age of the Bat is becoming less distinct. An analysis piece on Cricinfo has already pointed out that 2011 was an unusually fallow year for Test batsmen and in particular opening pairs, bucking the year-on-year upward trend. The combined batting average of all Test match XI top sevens was 37, the second lowest in a decade and four runs down on the previous year. The combined batting average of Test openers was 33.76, again well down, with the average opening stand dropping by nearly 29% on the previous year.

And even individually there has been an insidious but unignorable trend towards the misfiring run machine: Ricky Ponting (until he met India's Test match popguns), Gautam Ghambir, Andrew Strauss, Graeme Smith and others have all had testing times. At least one all-time great has gone eight months without a hundred in any format. Australia and New Zealand played out the most extraordinary Test match a few weeks ago, a blizzard of raised fingers, looping nicks, splattered stumps. It is hard even to remember the last enervating run-feast Test match draw. Lately something always seems to be happening. But why should this be?

The most obvious reason is that pitches have been prepared to favour bowlers, most notably in South Africa and Australia, and good use has been made of conditions. More encouragingly, there are suddenly some fine young fast bowlers around to do so. Presumably this is in part a cyclical thing, but James Pattinson, Vernon Philander, Marchant De Lange, Steven Finn and Doug Bracewell and Umesh Yadav promise to provide some high-class high-speed fun in years to come. Beyond this some old-ish favourites – Ravi Rampaul, Ishant Sharma, Stuart Broad, Kemar Roach – have had strong second halves of the year. It is an unexpectedly vital seam of talent and Test cricket is all the better for it.

On top of this, perhaps, the effects of full-time bowling coaches are being felt for the first time. Intensive one-on-one coaching, video analysis, managed rest. These are all benefits not doled out to previous generations. In the right hands the bowling coach role can produce startling improvements.

Plus there is also the old issue of Twenty20 cricket. Perhaps it is now fair to say that it is batsmen who find the shift between formats hardest, that batting is the discipline that might suffer, at least for a while, under the yoke of new pressures, new modes, new tactical onus. David Warner – as he always is, for anything you care to point at these days – is the perfect example: his basic talent is prodigious and undoubted. But modern cricket sure has made it hard for him to translate that into a coherent cricketing identity. Despite that stunning recent hundred, Zaheer Khan has at times made him look like a novice.

Perhaps the intense pressures on bowlers in Twenty20 and even 50‑over cricket have been a good thing. The margin for error is tiny. Absolute concentration is essential. Accuracy is everything. Extreme pace helps, as does any kind of deception. These are all vital transferable skills.

Duncan Fletcher has pointed out that fast bowling is the one discipline where it is possible to make dramatic improvements at almost any stage in a career. Batting, by contrast, is a business of grooving and gradual perfection. It is a fragile craft and flaws can linger or never quite evaporate. Poor old batsmen: bewildered by format-shift, cosied unhelpfully by years of friendly pitches, debauched by easy runs. Bowlers, it seems, are back with some fresh ideas. And suddenly the cricketing world looks like a slightly more frightening – and far more interesting – place.

• Pre-auction news from the Bangladesh Premier League, a 20-day start-up spectacular due to start in mid-February. Among those to make themselves "available" for purchase is James Anderson. Presumably Anderson his not expecting to be involved in England's simultaneous 50‑over series against Pakistan. Perhaps this is confirmation that he was in fact dropped rather than rested for the India series. Anderson also wants to play in the Indian Premier League this year. It has been a long, arduous, committed, at times dispiriting ascent to senior bowler-dom in the England team. You couldn't really blame him for taking the Test specialist route from here on in. His five-day bowling is a joy to behold. In the shorter forms others can take up the slack.

• Dickie Bird was awarded a CBE for his charitable work in the New Year honours list. Congratulations to him: no doubt he is delighted. The captain of England's deaf cricket team, Umesh Valjee, has an MBE, due recognition for an inspirational career. Giles Clarke, meanwhile, gets a CBE for services to cricket. Vindication, for Clarke at least, for his decision not to resign after the embarrassing debacle with Allen Stanford, the criminal to whose rented helicopter the England and Wales Cricket Board head man hitched English cricket's fortunes. Stanford is still in prison in the United States. The man who gave him to us has a gong from the Queen. Amazing how things turn out, isn't it?

• Finally, in the first ODI between South Africa and Sri Lanka, Hashim Amla is motoring along after the Proteas won the toss and elected to bat. With 35 overs of their innings gone, South Africa were 190 for two, Jacques Kallis having scored 72 in a 144-run partnership with Amla.